1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to dental instruments and, more particularly, to bitefork transfer jig assemblies.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Transfer jig assemblies are used to repetitively determine the position of a bitefork relative to certain indices of a patient in order to develope a dental prosthetic. Existing transfer jig assemblies are generally metallic and include machined parts. In particular, metallic rods are interconnected by clamping blocks having finger tightenable screws threadedly engaging the blocks to clamp the rods therein. The bitefork is positionally established relative to a face bow which represents a reference point for the bitefork. After the face bow is positionally aligned and the bitefork located relative thereto through positional adjustment of the rods of the transfer jig assembly, the components of the transfer jig assembly must be lockingly secured to one another.
To lockingly secure the transfer jig assembly, each of the finger screws must be tightened with careful attention to maintain the facebow in its reference location. The time required to tighten the finger screws is of significance and increases the likelihood of misalignment during the tightening process. Accordingly, great accuracy is difficult to obtain without a great deal of attention by a dentist or technician.
To make the dental prosthetic, the transfer jig assembly, including the attached bitefork, is delivered to a dental laboratory. A dental technician mounts the transfer jig assembly upon a mounting block attachable to an articulator in accordance with an index. The work attendant the dental prosthetic may now be performed. Because such transfer jig assembly is relatively expensive, it must be returned to the dental office for reuse. This lack of disposability requires stockpiling in a dental office of a plurality of reuseable transfer jig assemblies with attendant high overhead costs.
Cleaning and sterilization of transfer jig assemblies prior to use is expensive and time consuming. Failure to sterilize may expose both patients and medical personnel to possibly incurable and probably fatal diseases.